By Steve Rhodes

I’m cranking out as many campaign notebooks as I can before the polls close on Tuesday. Here’s what I have so far:
* Illinois 2018 Primary Campaign Notebook 1: MAGA, Mendacity & Moby Mike.
* Illinois 2018 Primary Campaign Notebook 2: Chris Kennedy’s Confusing Campaign.
* Illinois 2018 Primary Campaign Notebook 3: Who Is Biss? Pensions, Passes & Pussy Riot.
* Illinois 2018 Primary Campaign Notebook 4: The Plutocratic Pol.
* Illinois 2018 Primary Campaign Notebook 5: Pat Quinn, Really?
* Illinois 2018 Primary Campaign Notebook 6: The 3 Worst People On The Ballot.

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Posted on March 19, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

For completists, there was no column on Friday.
Plenty of political commentary @BeachwoodReport. I hope to have more on the site today and through primary day on Tuesday.
New on the Beachwood since Thursday . . .
The Beachwood Radio Sports Hour #192: Let’s Go Hobos!
Starring Jonah Hill as Bo Rambler. Plus: New Bears Free Agent Haul Replaces Old Bears Free Agent Haul; Score Card; Grimm Reaper; White Sox Boo-Boos; Fire Fail; Tick-Tock, Blackhawks Clock; and Diva Delle Donne.
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The Man Who Made March Madness A Monster Moneymaker
And the ubiquitous phrase he used to do it – and came to regret.

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Posted on March 17, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

Exclusive! Official Illinois Bicentennial Beer Entries
From Blago Beer to Madigale to Pabst Blue State Ribbon!

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Posted on March 14, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

Wow, things were kind of touch-and-go there for a few days, I thought I was having an aneurysm, if that’s a thing you can “have.”
I think I’m okay now, relatively speaking, I mean, I’ve been having issues for awhile now, including weird head stuff, and then one day I thought that nasty flu had finally caught up with me, but after sleeping most of Monday afternoon I magically returned to something approaching normal. My kind of normal, not everyone else’s.
So let me try to jump back on the horse now and begin to catch up, especially with our local primaries. First, Bruce Rauner.

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Posted on March 14, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

MONDAY UPDATE: Maybe. Or maybe Tuesday. I’m having issues. I might be sick, for one thing. (Don’t call, mom, I’m probably not dying – though one never knows.)
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FRIDAY NOTE: The Papers will appear next on Monday.
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New on the Beachwood today . . .
Illinois Audubon Society Acquires Unique Wetland In Southern Illinois
Round Pond.
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‘This wetland rich area contains high quality bottomland hardwood forests and deep water swamps with old growth bald cypress and tupelo gum timber, a variety of breeding birds of forested wetlands, such as the Swainson’s warble, a heron rookery, rare plants including water hickory, American snowbell, winged sedge, cypress-knee sedge, swollen sedge, narrow-leaved sunflower and narrow-leaved crabapple.’

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Posted on March 8, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

“Last year, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said it objected to 1,130 applications for concealed carry licenses, mostly filed by residents in suburban Chicago. Most of those objections were for domestic violence or gun arrests. Despite the objections, a state review board ruled 90 percent of those people eligible to legally carry a gun, according to the sheriff’s office,” WBEZ reports.
“This system of object-and-review started when Illinois lawmakers were forced to hastily craft a concealed carry law after a federal court threw out the state’s concealed carry ban in 2012. What they came up with is unlike any other system in the country. It’s meant to provide concealed carry licenses expediently to those who qualify, while keeping licenses from potentially dangerous people. But both Chicago-area police and residents said the law is doing neither of those things.”
Here’s where a bad situation is made unconscionably worse:
“State officials, who are the only ones who have access to comprehensive concealed carry objection information, have refused to make almost any of it available – and the monthly data they send to Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office is misleading.”

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Posted on March 7, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

New on the Beachwood today . . .
The Weekend In Chicago Rock
Featuring: Ghost Town, Watain, Old 97’s, Doyle Bramhall II, Canadian Rifle, Pegboy, Oraloo, and Gentle Leader XIV.

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Posted on March 6, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

Here’s the Beachwood’s abbreviated but still exclusive Oscars coverage.

The #ChicagoOscar for Executive Producer of a Mockumentary goes to Rahm Emanuel, for “Forrest Claypool Is The World’s Greatest Apparatchik To Ever Get Fired Press Conference.”

— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) March 5, 2018

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Posted on March 5, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

Here’s some stuff from my aborted Friday column, which I didn’t finish due to entirely foreseen circumstances.
New on the Beachwood since then . . .

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Posted on March 4, 2018

By Steve Rhodes

Today’s political commentary:

A day after reporting a $20k contribution from a nephew of former mayor Richard M. Daley, @KennedyforIL–who’s ripped the culture of insiders in IL politics–reported getting $100k from the mayor’s brother, former White House chief of staff Bill Daley. pic.twitter.com/7CRYE1My1q

— Mick Dumke (@mickeyd1971) March 1, 2018

Note: Bill Daley is Chris Kennedy’s finance chair.

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Posted on March 1, 2018